Xperia Z2 Photography and First Impressions

soulreaver99 · Apr 2, 2014

I just went through a full work day and used the Xperia Z2 the same way I use my Nexus 5 and iPhone 5s (moderate to heavy use). Making calls, sending emails, checking up on news and social media, looking up reports on the web and watching videos while working out at the gym - all the usual stuff. This has been unplugged from the charger at 7:30AM this morning and it is now 10:40 with 41% left on the battery which is absolutely impressive. I wasn't even using ART and Stamina mode.

Normally my Nexus 5 will be at 10-15% and my iPhone 5S would have died at like 6PM. Will continue to test as the days go by. I should have a review up and posted soon

omersak · Apr 2, 2014

soulreaver99 said:
I just went through a full work day and used the Xperia Z2 the same way I use my Nexus 5 and iPhone 5s (moderate to heavy use). Making calls, sending emails, checking up on news and social media, looking up reports on the web and watching videos while working out at the gym - all the usual stuff. This has been unplugged from the charger at 7:30AM this morning and it is now 10:40 with 41% left on the battery which is absolutely impressive. I wasn't even using ART and Stamina mode.

Normally my Nexus 5 will be at 10-15% and my iPhone 5S would have died at like 6PM. Will continue to test as the days go by. I should have a review up and posted soon

Seems very promising, indeed. Can you post the screen-on duration, by any chance?

mushtafa · Apr 2, 2014

As above, would like to see some gsam battery stats. Been lingering in the m8 forums and they've been seeing 7-7.5hrs screen on time.

Sent with Tapatalk

Chad_Petree · Apr 2, 2014

soulreaver99 said:
I just went through a full work day and used the Xperia Z2 the same way I use my Nexus 5 and iPhone 5s (moderate to heavy use). Making calls, sending emails, checking up on news and social media, looking up reports on the web and watching videos while working out at the gym - all the usual stuff. This has been unplugged from the charger at 7:30AM this morning and it is now 10:40 with 41% left on the battery which is absolutely impressive. I wasn't even using ART and Stamina mode.

Normally my Nexus 5 will be at 10-15% and my iPhone 5S would have died at like 6PM. Will continue to test as the days go by. I should have a review up and posted soon

My nexus 5 would have been dead by 12-1 pm with your usage, I never get a full day out of it, I think using it as an iPod takes its toll on the battery HARD.

Maybe the Z2 will be my first phone to last me the whole day?

solwretep · Apr 2, 2014

Soulreaver99:

Could you upload pictures taken using the 20Mp mode (is that perhaps the manual mode? ) ?
Preferably daylight pics with trees far away in order to catch detail..

Chad_Petree · Apr 2, 2014

mushtafa said:
As above, would like to see some gsam battery stats. Been lingering in the m8 forums and they've been seeing 7-7.5hrs screen on time.

Sent with Tapatalk

I want some of that magic that HTC did on the One (m8) , its battery its just 20% bigger than the one on the Nexus 5 and yet it doubles its battery life , with that being said I always take those" 7-8 hours of screen time! " with a grain of salt because some people achieve that only while using 20% brightness

kersey · Apr 2, 2014

@soulreaver99, looking forward to a review to keep us going while waiting for our units.

I ready somewhere that many of the native Sony apps don't support ART. Will be interesting to find out if they do.

Also looking forward to your opinion on the sound via both speakers and headset.

Sent from my GT-N7100 using Tapatalk

soulreaver99 · Apr 2, 2014

Chad_Petree said:
My nexus 5 would have been dead by 12-1 pm with your usage, I never get a full day out of it I think using it as an iPod takes it toll HARD on the battery.

Maybe the Z2 will be my first phone to last me the whole day? <3

Gesendet von meinem Nexus 5 mit Tapatalk

I'm sure it will. As for the Nexus, I'm running Franco kernel with 50‰ bright so it makes my battery claims invalid. Sorry forgot to mention that.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

soulreaver99 · Apr 2, 2014

solwretep said:
Soulreaver99:

Could you upload pictures taken using the 20Mp mode (is that perhaps the manual mode? ) ?
Preferably daylight pics with trees far away in order to catch detail..

Yes! Will do that today. And it is indeed in manual mode.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

soulreaver99 · Apr 2, 2014

kersey said:
@soulreaver99, looking forward to a review to keep us going while waiting for our units.

I ready somewhere that many of the native Sony apps don't support ART. Will be interesting to find out if they do.

Also looking forward to your opinion on the sound via both speakers and headset.

Sent from my GT-N7100 using Tapatalk

Definitely will review the speakers. I want to compare it to the HTC One speakers too.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

chesterr · Apr 2, 2014

Off topic: can you really use the phone the way you use it and can you share the battery stats with us. Like how it does in the real world. Can you post it in the thread iRimas started?
http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=2682373

soulreaver99 · Apr 2, 2014

As requested, here are some 20MP photos and comparison to 8MP. Keep in mind you won't really notice the difference between the two unless you view it at full resolution. I have more photos posted here as well as the full res: https://flic.kr/s/aHsjVXogrK

Oranges in 8MP

Oranges in 20MP

Breakfast in 8MP

Breakfast in 20MP

Dishes in 8MP

Dishes in 20MP

Flowers in 8MP

Flowers in 20MP

And I was playing with background defocus. It's pretty cool (even though I kinda screwed it up)!

dibdab214 · Apr 2, 2014

Nice pics mate. I'm pleased with how they look. Could you do a video sample in 1080p or 4k to show video and audio quality. Some of the older samples from February have really poor audio. Hoping it's been fixed for the final release

Sent from my HTC One using xda app-developers app

JMonkeYJ · Apr 2, 2014

kersey said:
I ready somewhere that many of the native Sony apps don't support ART. Will be interesting to find out if they do.

Sony's version of KitKat doesn't have ART support at all (at least for now) so I guess it doesn't really matter if the Sony apps support it or not.

soulreaver99 · Apr 2, 2014

JMonkeYJ said:
Sony's version of KitKat doesn't have ART support at all (at least for now) so I guess it doesn't really matter if the Sony apps support it or not.

You are right. I just looked again and there is no way to enable ART.

soulreaver99 · Apr 2, 2014

As requested, here is a 4K video sample. I apologize if it sucks because I did this outside of my office at work in an area where there really isn't that much to look at. I will have a better recording when I get home:

http://youtu.be/NLHXiSCshpw

SEXperiaX1 · Apr 2, 2014

soulreaver99 said:
As requested, here is a 4K video sample. I apologize if it sucks because I did this outside of my office at work in an area where there really isn't that much to look at. I will have a better recording when I get home: http://youtu.be/NLHXiSCshpw

Really nice quality.
Where did you get your phone from?
I live in Glendale and Sony store where I live doesn't sell it, and they don't know when they will get it even.

dibdab214 · Apr 2, 2014

soulreaver99 said:
As requested, here is a 4K video sample. I apologize if it sucks because I did this outside of my office at work in an area where there really isn't that much to look at. I will have a better recording when I get home:

http://youtu.be/NLHXiSCshpw

Thanks a lot buddy. Really good quality and the audio is better than what I have previously heard. Can't wait to get my own

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk

beatsmaster0510 · Apr 3, 2014

The pictures and the videos posted by soulreaver99 made decide to get back to the Sony phone route. I have both Xperia Z and S4 before when it launched but decided to let the Z go due to the bad photos it took and bad speaker placement. Although its design and waterproofing are the main reasons why its hard to let it go. I'm fairly satisfied with S4 but the Z2 has a lot of improvements from the previous versions and it also solved the problems the Z had. Will definitely get Z2 this year!

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

soulreaver99 · Apr 3, 2014

Attached is a screenshot of today's battery usage. Today was moderate on the heavy side and the battery has lasted 14 hours with 25% left.

So far, I am very impressed with this device and it is a definite improvement over the Xperia Z1 which I was really frustrated with - see my review (some of you XDA members / Z1 Zealots disagreed with my review lol).

Sony's Z-series phone is one of, if not THE best looking phones out there and even though the Z2 is bigger than the Nexus 5, Z1, Galaxy S5, etc.. it is still very comfortable to hold. I was playing with the HTC One M8 today at Best Buy today and I really like how comfortable it is to hold. However, the button placement of the M8 was awkward and my fingers often got in the way of the camera lens. Photo quality also suffered because of the low 4MP camera.

There is no lag on this phone at all and applications load and run quickly because it is running the top of the line Android hardware with the latest operating system so there are no worries there. The only thing that I wished the Z2 had was 32GB internal storage or at least an option to run applications off the SD card like how Samsung does it.

Most importantly, the camera has improved over the Z1 (thankfully) but it's still not at the level of the iPhone 5s in auto mode. Most phone camera photographers just want something that can take great pictures without too much thought and the iPhone still wins in that category. However, the Xperia Z2 is not too far behind and I am hopeful that upcoming firmware updates improve the camera and fix some annoying bugs.

I'm not sure how the Galaxy S5 will be but so far the Z2 is the best android phone right now in terms of design, performance, battery life, and camera. I'll have a more complete review sometime next week as I need to further test the device and play with more of it's features :victory:

Xperia Z2 Photography and First Impressions

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